Leicester Shire Promotions is celebrating ten years of its successful Stay Play Explore short break campaign for visitors to Leicester and Leicestershire.

Since they were launched in 2005, the Stay Play Explore campaigns have generated in excess of 125,000 bednights for accommodation providers in Leicester and Leicestershire.

To celebrate this anniversary, Leicester Shire Promotions is running a national ‘Discovery’ marketing campaign to promote the Stay Play Explore breaks including targeted print and radio advertising, online activity, search engine optimisation, PR and social media.

Martin Peters, Chief Executive of Leicester Shire Promotions said: “We created the innovative and unique Stay Play Explore package in direct response to calls for help from local hotels who wanted to use excess capacity during school holidays, when their conference business was typically quieter.

“Since then, the campaigns have proven to be a great success, attracting significant numbers of families and couples to visit and extend their stay in the city and county. To put the bednight success figure into perspective, this is the equivalent of booking every bedspace in a 100-capacity hotel each night of the year for over three years. Consequently, we can say with confidence that Stay Play Explore has made a major contribution to the local visitor economy over the last ten years,” added Martin.

Tony Hill, Executive General Manager at Hinckley Island Hotel, one of the Stay Play Explore accommodation partners, said: “This unique partnership with Leicester Shire Promotions and our involvement in its Stay Play Explore campaign have transformed the nature of business at our hotel. Stay Play Explore has significantly boosted the hotel’s family leisure bookings and has helped us to regularly out-perform other hotel group members.”

The Stay Play Explore short breaks for couples and families include Family Fun, Family Adventure, City Treat, King Richard III, Gourmet Taste, Glorious Heritage and Vegetarian. The breaks provide individuals, couples and families with a choice of fantastic local visitor attractions and activities, and high quality accommodation. The breaks are £129 and offer savings of up to 40 per cent on standard admission and room rates.